News Updates

Jonathan Kelly works as a music supervisor for Wynton Marsalis. In previous blog posts he explained how he got his enviable gig and shared some details of a collaboration between Wynton and the Garth Fagan Dance Company. Recently Jonathan and Wynton have been hard at work on a violin concerto, “Concerto in D,” in collaboration with Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti. This project has been captured in a documentary film titled “Nicky and Wynton: The Making of a Concerto” by producer/director Chris Eley.
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Music Director Alan Gilbert will conduct the New York Philharmonic in the World Premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner Wynton Marsalis’s The Jungle (Symphony No. 4), commissioned by the Philharmonic as the first of The New York Commissions, with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis; William Bolcom’s Trombone Concerto with Principal Trombone Joseph Alessi as soloist; and Copland’s Quiet City, featuring Principal Trumpet Christopher Martin and English horn player Grace Shryock in her Philharmonic solo debut. The performances take place Wednesday, December 28, 2016, at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, December 29 at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, December 30 at 8:00 p.m.; and Tuesday, January 3 at 7:30 p.m.
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On December 18, 2016 at 2pm, Jazz at Lincoln Center will proudly offer the organization’s first Relaxed Performance of its one-of-a-kind holiday concert, Big Band Holidays featuring the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, music director and saxophonist Sherman Irby and guest vocalist Catherine Russell.
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One of the greatest living jazz composers and musicians is bringing his renowned performance reputation and his positive message to the Wyoming Valley.
Wynton Marsalis and his Quintet performs at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 11 at Wyoming Seminary’s Kirby Center for Creative Arts. Marsalis, the managing and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center and its orchestra, is an advocate for expanding a global community through jazz education, and his quintet tours with the same mission.
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Jazz great Wynton Marsalis, a virtuoso trumpet player and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, has written — wait for it — a violin concerto.
As the daughter of the late virtuoso violinist Roman Totenberg, I was intrigued and wanted to know more. So I spent an hour with Marsalis — and the violinist he wrote his concerto with and for. (More on that later.)
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Two personable musicians, who win on all fronts: at the pinnacle of their highly competitive and skilled professions, highly articulate, and perhaps unlikely partners in their art. In one corner, ladies and gentlemen, the composer, world-leading jazz trumpeter, teacher, head of Lincoln Center Jazz, the New Orleans-born Wynton Marsalis, 55. In the other, Nicola Benedetti, 29, the Scottish classical violinist, teacher and leading campaigning proselytiser for the importance of music in all spheres.
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“Chris Eley’s film is genuinely fascinating and gripping. Fascinating because it gives a rare insight into the hard grind of creativity, and gripping because of the strained dynamic between two people, both of whom are clearly on the side of the angels.” The Times
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Renowned jazz musicians Igor Butman and Wynton Marsalis took center stage at DC’s historic Lincoln Theatre to celebrate the fifth anniversary of AU’s groundbreaking Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History, which was established to promote cultural diplomacy and educational exchange between the United States and Russia.
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Wynton Marsalis, the jazz artist, has made repeated forays into art-music composition — writing, that is, notated music for large ensembles, like “Blood on the Fields,” a jazz oratorio that won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize. In the last year he’s had a couple of significant orchestral performances in the Washington area: Washington Performing Arts presented a revision of his Blues Symphony at the Kennedy Center, in 2015, and the National Symphony Orchestra offered its first performance of his new violin concerto, which the orchestra co-commissioned, on Thursday night.
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